Hey Hey Ladies,
Last week, Instructor Chrissy held a seminar on macro-nutrition. A macro-nutrient is a substance required in relatively large amounts by living organisms to function properly. Instructor Chrissy began the seminar with explaining what each of the macro-nutrients are and their benefits. Macro-nutrients for humans can be broken down into three categories protein, carbs, and fats, each of these nutrients play a key role in proper health of the human body.
Macro-nutrients play an important part in performance nutrition. Performance nutrition is anytime your are trying to improve your physical performance. Carbs are broken down into a sugar called glucose. Glucose provides the human body with energy. When your body needs energy it will use the glucose up right away. When carbs are consumed and not needed immediately the glucose is stored as fat for later. Protein breaks down into amino acids, which helps to repair and maintain muscle fibers.
The last of the macro-nutrients is the fat group. Many people are afraid of fats, but the truth is that our bodies need good fats to work properly. Fats are an important part in brain development, controlling inflammation and blood clotting. The good fats we receive from our food give our bodies the essential fatty acid called linolenic acid. This fatty acid cannot be produced by the human body and needs to be consumed. This fatty acid is needed for proper body function. Macro nutrients are play a huge role in performance nutrition. Instructor Chrissy shared Five Rules of Performance Nutrition to help guide our eating habits.
5 Rules of Performance Nutrition
- Always eat at least 5 times a day
- Eating too much or not eating enough are two things that really hinder our performance as an aerial artist. Many of us only eat once or twice a day! Even if we are lucky to get a third meal, we are constantly looking for something quick and easy, which means that it is usually not the healthiest option. As athletes it is important to fuel and regulate our metabolism. Our metabolism breaks down our food and turns it into energy. The more regulated your metabolism is, the faster it will be, and more calories you will burn!
- Meal Prepping
- Chrissy stressed the importance of meal prepping to help maintain your metabolism. For me meal prepping seemed like a daunting task, but she broke it down into just starting out with prepping healthy snack options that you can grab and go with. Meal prepping like anything else you don’t have to jump in with both feet right away. Start out small and work your way up.
- Before eating, ask your self what you will be doing the next 2 – 3 hours.
- I am terrible at this! Several times this past week I had a super busy schedule at work and at the studio! I would get home shove some food in my face, head out the door, and not once thought about what I would be doing in the next couple hours. Turns out eating pizza right before aerial conditioning is not a wise choice. I only made that mistake once, because half way through Instructor Olivia’s aerial conditioning I thought I was going to throw up!
- Be mindful of how active you will be in within the next couple hours. If you plan on going to studio, be sure to eat enough, so your body has the energy it needs to perform. If you are not going to be as active maybe scale back on the snacks or have a lighter meal.
- Losing weight with negative calories
- From the wise words of Instructor Chrissy, ” We are not here to talk about weight loss. We are here to talk about nutrition, if you take care of your body you are going to live a lot longer! It’s the only body that you get to live in!”
- Many of us are focused on counting calories, we watch the amount that we eat or to accumulate negative calories. As athletes we need to consume enough calories, otherwise our bodies start to break down muscle rather than fat to replenish energy! WE DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN! After all we are trying to become stronger to be more successful at our sport! The breaking down of muscle contradicts all our hard work! Be sure that you are consuming enough calories for your activity level! If you need help with determining you calorie intake Instructor Chrissy is more than pleased to help you!
- Supplementation
- Choosing the right supplement is very important! Supplements are not meant to be a quick fix! They are meant to fill in the gaps and we shouldn’t heavily rely on them to improve our performance or nutrition.
Instructor Chrissy is a wonderful resource to help us on our nutritional journey! She is always willing to help and wants you to improve at your sport! If you missed out on this seminar and would like to know more please contact Instructor Chrissy.
Until Next Time,
Janelle